GOTHIC VERSION. —The Mceso-Goths were a German tribe which settled on the borders of the Greek empire, and their language is essentially a German dialect. Their version of the Bible was made by Ulphilas, in the fourth century, after Greek MSS. in the N. T., and after the Seventy in the Old. The author is generally regarded as an Arian; but his peculiar doctrinal sentiments do not seem to have influenced his translation. Of the O. T. portion, nothing but a fragment of Nehemiah has been printed, although parts of other books have been discovered. A great part of the New has been published at different times in fragments. The four Gospels exist in the very celebrated MS. called the Codex Argenteu.s, now preserved in the library of the university at Upsal, and minutely described by Dr. E. D. Clarke and Zahn. This MS., however, has considerable chasms. The Gospels have been several times printed from it, but not very correctly. 'That of Uppstrom is the most exact and beautiful (1854). Knittel discovered fragments of Paul's Epistle to the Romans in a codex rescriptus belonging to the Wolfenbiittel library, which he published in 1762, 4to, and which were republished by Zahn in the complete edition of the Gospels issued in 1808, 4to.
In '8'7, Angelo Mai discovered important parts of the Gothic version among five codices rescripti in the Ambrosian library at Milan. They contain for the most part the Pauline Epistles, with the exception of that to the Hebrews ; and two frag ments of Matthew. Various portions were printed by Mai in conjunction with Castillionus, in 1819. In 1329 the latter published the fragments of Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians. In 1834 fragments of the epistle to the Romans, the First to the Corinthians, and that to the Epliesians; and in 1835, the frag-ments to the Pauline Epistles to the Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, and the First to the Thessalonians. In 1839 the same scholar published the fragments of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. These were all combined in the edition by Gabelentz and Loebe, 2 VOIS. 1836, 1847.—S. D.